1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to flexible belts for supporting pants, trousers, skirts and the like against the waist of a wearer.
2. State of the Prior Art
For many years, flexible belts have been provided with buckles having elongated tongues constructed and arranged to project through a chosen one of a series of longitudinally spaced openings in the free end of the belt, depending on the size of the wearer. Some belt buckles have been developed that eliminate the need for perforations, which enhanced the appearance of the end portions of the belt. However, the continued presence of belt buckles left the belts with a relatively thick and bulky end portion where the belt end portion was attached to the buckle. Also, whenever such belts were adjusted in length to accommodate a change in girth of the wearer, a mark extending transversely of the belt caused by the prior position of the buckle along the length of the belt disfigured the belt across its width where the prior position of the buckle applied pressure across the width of the belt, whenever the position of the buckle along the length of the belt was changed to accommodate for a change of girth of the wearer.
Eliminating a buckle from prior art belts left the modified belts with attachment means exposed to view, so that the appearance of some belts left something to be desired because of exposed belt openings and other attachment means that remained exposed to view when the buckles were eliminated. One solution to this problem was to provide belts with additional structure to hide the attachment means and/or belt openings from view. This additional structure increased the bulkiness of the belt and its cost of fabrication.
Other length-adjustable belts had openings only on the back side of the belt to avoid the exposure of the adjustment means from prior art belts. The latter type required at least two pairs of interfitting male and female attachment means to align the overlapping belt ends. These and other structural features of prior art belts made them both more expensive and more difficult to fabricate.
Prior art adjustable belts lacked adequate precision of adjustability of the belt length around the waist of a wearer in response to gain or loss of weight of men and/or women and in response to growth of children wearing belts. Also, ornamentation of prior art belts was limited to the buckle attachments available. Also, many prior art belts included fillers which made it difficult to adjust the shape of the belts to that of the wearers because the filler material limited the flexibility of the belt and increased their bulk.
Another drawback of prior art belts was that they limited inventory selection. An inventory investment for a particular style of belt required a large investment to insure an adequate variety of belt sizes in stock. If a smaller number of sizes were required to have a complete inventory of belts for any style, the same investment could be used to insure a larger variety of belt styles in stock at either the retail or manufacturer level.
The following patents were found in a novelty search performed prior to the preparation of this specification.
U.S. Pat. No. 446,186 to Leck, issued Feb. 10, 1891, shows a lady's belt having overlapping end portions. One end portion has openings B extending through its entire thickness. A male attachment member C extends from the other end portion of the belt through the entire length of one of the openings B determined by the size of the waist of the wearer, and has its unattached end exposed beyond the one end portion of the belt when the belt is closed around the waist of the wearer. It is thus necessary for Leck to add a flexible flap D to the belt to shield the openings B and member C from outside view, thereby complicating the belt structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,158,187 to Woodruff, issued Sep. 28, 1915, shows a belt extending through a series of loops 1 spaced around the inner surface of a pair of pants with overlapping end portions. One of the overlapping end portions has a plurality of knobs or conical heads 4 selectively attached to a plurality of corresponding spring sockets 5 secured to the other end of the belt to adjust the length of the belt. This belt is supported on loops entirely within the trousers, which makes access to the belt to adjust its length difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,345,750 to Beaumont, issued Jul. 6, 1920, shows a flexible belt 10 having a pair of studs 12 extending from an enlarged shoulder 15 selectively through a series of spaced pairs of apertures 16 in such a manner that the outer ends of the studs and some of the apertures 16 are exposed as shown in FIG. 1 when the belt is tightened around the waist of the wearer. The requirement to attach a pair of male connection members such as studs 15 to a pair of female attachment members such as apertures 16 to align the ends of the belt makes both the construction and operation of the belt more complex than if the belt had only a single stud to aperture connection to overlap the belt ends properly. However, a single stud to aperture connection fails to maintain the belt ends in proper transverse alignment.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,565,952 to Goff, issued Nov. 20, 1951, shows a flexible belt B having a pair of tubing elements 11 and 17, the former of which supports a metal strip having a U-shaped bent portion to engage a square-shaped opening 9 and the latter having hook members 15 engaging stop elements 14 to adjust the belt length. Both the hook members 15 and stop elements 14 are arranged in pairs which must be engaged simultaneously, thereby increasing the difficulty of aligning the belt during its adjustment. Tubing elements 11 and 17, necessary in the Goff structure, provide structural complications that would be better eliminated if the belt structure would make these elements unnecessary.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,943,332 to Meeker, issued Jul. 5, 1960, shows a belt free of visible attachment holes that is constructed and arranged to fold over one end of the belt to make that end bulky. A localized bulky portion detracts from the appearance of the belt. An ornamental device 17 provided in the vicinity of the bulky portion draws attention to the bulky portion.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,496 to Dritz, issued Dec. 3, 1963, shows a belt with corrugated fastening means 4,5 that requires a visible U-shaped clip 6 to keep the belt in a locked position when its end portions 2 and 3 overlap and contact one another at several spaced lines of attachment. Pressure sensitive adhesive 11 may be used to further secure corrugated fastening means 4,5 to the belt, and end portions 12 of the corrugations may have adhesive to strengthen the bond.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,775 to Demers et al., issued Mar. 24, 1970, shows a belt having no buckle or stitching exposed to the outside thereof. This patent uses adhesive material that forms joints 36 to conceal stitching of thread or other connecting means 34 by preventing the latter from extending to the outer surface of the belt. This patent has a folded tongue 22 with holes 24 extending through its entire thickness to adjust the belt length. Folding tongue 22 is used to cover holes 24 and stitching 34 imparts bulkiness to the belt.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,529 to Yahata, issued Jan. 25, 1983 shows a complicated buckle 1 for attaching overlapping end portions of a belt 2 beneath an ornamental cover for the buckle. A free end of the belt has a series of spaced holes 7 that extend only a portion of the belt thickness from a rear surface of the belt near its free end to receive a projection 8 from an element pivoted to buckle 1 within one of the spaced holes 7. Projection 8 extends from base 3. The latter is pivoted to buckle structure 1 to clamp a free end of the belt beneath an ornamental cover 4 of the belt to the latter. In this patent, an adjusting belt 6 is attached to buckle 1 through a pivotable attaching plate 5. This construction requires that a buckle be included where the ends of the belt overlap.